Hitting Baseballs, Just Not as Far

Giants and Rangers Win With Contact Hitting, Bunts and Baserunning; the 'Lost Arts'

ENLARGE

Julio Borbon lays down a bunt in Game 2 of the Texas Rangers' ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Getty Images

By

Matthew Futterman and

Brian Costa

Updated Oct. 30, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

Two games into the 2010 World Series, the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants are writing a requiem for a bedeviling era in baseball history: a time when the chief ingredient of a winning team was a pack of happy oafs whose job was to hit the baseball into the next Congressional district.

These two teams have combined for 27 runs in the first two games, but it didn't happen with a flurry of home runs. They've scored through the kind of aggressive baserunning and timely, intelligent situational hitting and bunting that younger fans, the ones who came of age during baseball's era of jet propulsion, have rarely seen.

"Whether it's home runs or bunt runs, we don't care, as long as it's one extra run than the other guys at the end of the game," a champagne-drenched Mike Fontenot of the Giants said last Saturday after his team clinched a series berth.

The numbers tell the story rather starkly. Last year, the teams in the World Series—the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees, ranked first and third in the majors in home runs. The Rangers and Giants rank No. 10 and No. 11.

San Francisco was 17th in runs scored and 13th in slugging percentage this season. But they ranked fifth in strikeouts and third in sacrifice bunts in the National League and fourth in all of baseball in sacrifice hits. "We take aggressive swings but they're under-control swings," said outfielder Cody Ross.

"We've got a bunch of guys who come to battle, it's a united group," said Brian Sabean, the team's general manager. "The bottom line is we know how to compete and that's the first thing you have to do in sports— know how to compete."

Texas was only ninth in slugging percentage, but the team had the most sacrifice bunts in the American League, the second-most sacrifice flies and the fourth fewest strikeouts. The Rangers were also seventh in the majors in stolen bases.

For the Rangers, the shift in style began three years ago, when executives correctly predicted that increased steroid testing would send power numbers into a tailspin.

"We've definitely placed an emphasis on getting more athletic, building our pitching depth, kind of changing the perception of the organization as a one-dimensional, slugging, beat-you-over-the-head, 12-8 type club," said Jon Daniels, the Rangers general manager, before the World Series opener this week in San Francisco.

The Giants offense that has produced 20 runs in two games so far this season has been less 'shock and awe' than 'death by a thousand cuts.' In Game 1, the Giants ultimately drove Rangers ace Cliff Lee from the game with a walk and consecutive singles, before Juan Uribe sent a three-run blast to left-center.

First baseman Aubrey Huff said the key against Mr. Lee was pitch selection and staying in control. "We swung a lot but we didn't swing at a lot of bad pitches," he said.

The Giants' back-breaking seven-run rally in the eighth inning included just one truly hard-hit ball—a pinch-hit triple from Aaron Rowand that went along with four walks, two singles, and soft double to left. Mr. Uribe's big hit in Game 2 was a soft, run-scoring single served into right field.

While the Rangers struggled at the plate in Game 2 and blundered through four errors in the opener, they still showed flashes of the sort of all-around style that pummeled the home run-happy Yankees in the League Championship Series. In the sixth inning of Game 2, Giants catcher Buster Posey blocked a wild pitch from Matt Cain that popped 15 feet in the air. By the time the ball hit his glove, Rangers baserunners Michael Young and Josh Hamilton had moved up to second and third.

The Rangers led baseball this season in the number of times their baserunners managed to hustle from first base to third. In fact, they did this 22% more often than the next team in that category, the Cincinnati Reds.

The Rangers have two major stars in Mr. Lee and all-world outfielder Mr. Hamilton. After that it's a creaky Vladimir Guerrero and a supporting cast of promising upstarts and career mediocrities—and none of the expensive one-dimensional sluggers of the past.

"If the game says you've got to bunt, you bunt," manager Ron Washington said. "If the game says you've got to hit a ball to the right side, you go to the right side. If the game says you need to tag and go from first base to second base on a deep fly ball, you do that. Whatever the fundamentals of the game of baseball, that's Ranger baseball."

Not everyone is convinced the Texas-San Francisco formula represents the wave of the future. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said following World Series participants' blue-print presents would be suicidal in the league's power divisions over a 162-game schedule.

"You can get away with lesser lineups in the National League," Mr. Cashman said Monday at his $206 million team's post-mortem. "The bottom line is pitching is the key to the kingdom and that's why you try to collect as much as possible."

To Mr. Cashman's point, the pitching on both teams has been extraordinary. Giants pitchers led the league in strikeouts and ERA. And the Rangers pitchers held a vaunted Yankees lineup to just 19 runs over six games.

But the Giants and Rangers have gone about collecting quality pitching in a different fashion than the Yankees or the Boston Red Sox. Mr. Lee, the Rangers' ace, is one of the few pitchers on either side who didn't come up through his team's own minor leagues.

Giants president Larry Baer said the formula seems to be working. He said there is more passion for this team than any in his 18-years with the organization. "It validates that this game is an art and not a science," he said.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.